Monday, September 01, 2008

Long time no see! I hope you had a great August. And if it’s summer where you are, I hope you had a great summer.

I had a really nice break from work, so now I’m feeling very refreshed and excited about starting The Daily English Show again.

We had a really good time at iSummit – that was the conference we went to at the end of July and the start of August. So I’d like to thank the iSummit people for having us.

And the day after iSummit finished I went to hospital … not that that has anything to do with iSummit – I was planning to go to hospital. And I spent the whole of August in hospital. Well, it was almost a whole month, I got out at the end of last week. What happened was, I injured my knee … it was actually a while back that I did it, but for various reasons I waited to have surgery.

I really wasn’t looking forward to the operation and staying in hospital for a month. But I actually quite enjoyed it. Apart from the first few days after surgery with the pain and the nausea … that was pretty bad, but after that it was good. It was kind of like staying at a resort – without the cocktails and the swimming pool. You don’t have to do any cooking and cleaning, and they bring you food three times a day and cups of tea … and basically all you have to do is lie in bed and watch TV all day. And I timed it perfectly with the Olympics, so that was awesome, for the first time in my life, I actually watched a lot of the Olympics on TV and it was fun.

STICK NEWS

Kia Ora, in Stick News today, a falling baby’s life was saved by a nappy.

An 18-month-old baby boy fell out of a third-floor apartment window in Brazil. Police say he survived the 10-metre fall because his nappy snagged on a security spike which was embedded in the concrete wall around his apartment building. They say the baby boy dangled from the spike for a moment, then the nappy opened and he fell to the ground, but at a much slower speed. The boy is now in hospital being treated for minor fractures and is in stable condition.

And that was Stick News for Monday the 1st of September.Kia Ora.

Word of the Day

Today’s word is nausea. It is pronounced …And it means: a feeling of sickness with an inclination to vomit.

So, if you feel like you’re going to throw up, then you feel nauseous. So you could say: I feel nauseous, or … it is pronounced several ways.But you’re more likely to say: I think I’m going to be sick. Or: I think I’m going to throw up or hurl or one of the many other informal words there are for vomit.

Sarah There were six beds, but most of the time there were just four of us.

Kate What was wrong with the other people?

Sarah There was a teenage girl on the same side of the room as me and she had a knee injury too. And then on the other side of the room there was a woman who had injured her foot and another woman who had hurt her back.

Kate Did you get on well?

Sarah Yeah, I really liked the people in my room. I think I was really lucky to be in a room with nice people. And one more girl came in too, she had a knee operation, but it wasn’t such a big operation so she only stayed for two days … two nights, I think it was. She was nice too.

Kate So how long before your knee’s better?

Sarah Well, I’ll be off crutches by the end of this week and then I can walk, slowly. But it will be a while before I can do sports like snowboarding.

Kate How long is “a while”?

Sarah About a year.

Kate A year?!

Sarah Yeah, that’s what they said. I mean, I’ll work hard doing rehabilitation and maybe it’ll be sooner. But then … I don’t want to go and injure it again and have to go through the whole surgery thing again.

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